We Will Be Strong
by iJay
Summary: You can say whatever you'd like. It doesn't change the fact that Jacob is dead. That he is never coming back. And that it is entirely your family's fault."


A/N: Hey guys! This is my first ever Twilight fanfiction. Edward is a bit OOC. He will be himself again soon.

His absence did not go unnoticed. There was rarely ever a night that Edward did not spend beside me, and even if there was he always gave an advanced warning. Tonight there was no warning and there was no _him_.

The awkward warmth in the early hours of the morning was unsettling. I was so used to waking up with chills that waking up at room temperature made me nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I went to the other side of my room to turn on the ceiling fan. Almost instantly the room cooled, but it was hardly the same. When I crawled back into bed I leaned against my headboard and sat cross legged.

I did not know whether I was accepting the fact that he would not show up tonight or if I was waiting for him to come. My window was open and letting in the humid summer draft. It occured to me that maybe he had come and gone but surely he would have left me some sort of clue. I looked around my bed, for what I was not sure, but did not find anything out of the ordinary. There were some clothes on the floor, a couple of school textbooks. But if Edward wanted me to know he had come, I highly doubt he would have left me A Journey Through Science. 

I sighed and it seemed so loud in the otherwise silent room. I fumbled on the floor beside me for my CD player. When I had located it and placed the headphones on my head the music could not come fast enough. I was anxious for my lullably to begin playing, for one sign of familiarity to present itself to me. I layed on my pillow and allowed the music to soothe me into a slightly uncomfortable sleep. For some reason, though the song had guided me into sleep many times before, my mind found the song oddly distressing.

I woke up late the next morning, the headphones still on my head but no music coming through them. The player's batteries had probably died from extended use. I threw the device underneath my bed and stretched in the warm sun. It seemed like such a cliche thing to do, but the sun really put me at ease in the morning. I wandered downstairs to the kitchen where Charlie glanced up at me with bloodshot eyes. He seemed focussed on the newspaper, and I thought it would be rude to disturb him while he was reading. I reached up in the cabinet for the Frosted Flaked, the only sort of cereal we had left. My least favorite kind.

"Charlie, is there any other kind of cereal in the house? I really hate Frosted Flakes." He jumped from his chair and nearly dropped the newspaper on the floor. Confusion decorated his features.

"Edward hasn't told you yet, has he?" It seemed like we were not on the subject on cereal anymore. But the atmosphere was too heavy in the kitchen, and so I attempted to lighten the mood.

"Why would Edward have to tell me about the location of cereal in our house?" It was a pathetic attempt. Charlie sighed with a look of resignation on his face.

"Bella, sit down. I was really hoping I wouldn't be the one to have to tell you this." His voice did not have any of its usual characteristics. It was too concerned, too careful. He croaked half his words and spent the other half trying not to convey too much emotion.

"Dad, what's wrong?"

"Honey, it's about Jacob." I felt my entire body get heavier. Whatever was on Charlie's mind was certainly not going to have a positive effect on me in any way. The look he gave me now and the name he spoke did not go together in the least. Whenever Charlie spoke about Jacob it was with a lighthearted sillyness. Today he seemed too depressed to muster even the illusion of normality.

"He was killed last night, Bella." And all at once my heart ceased to beat. Someone had obviously ripped it from my chest, because if it were still intact it would hurt right now. There would be a burning in my chest and tears brimming in my eyes and all of those other silly things you read about at the end of depressing romance novels. But there was none of that. Just a hole in my chest for all the world to see and a faint ache radiating from my ribs where the muscles and veins had ripped in half. But no burning, no heart. This was not the end of a depressing romance novel, I told myself. I still had my hero, I had just lost a soldier along the way.

Where my heart stopped functioning, my mind took over. My thoughts were frantic, none of them coherent. My head began to hurt and my vision began to blur. I registered a hand on my back and another under my legs. I could comprehend the feeling of being lifted off the floor. But after that the only things I could understand were the faint pounding at my temples and the welcomed darkness.

I woke up in my room. It took me a few moments to feel the added prescence of someone next to me.

"Hmmmm," I hummed looking around the area. My throat did not seem to be working at that moment. A cold hand danced across my forehead and gently pushed me back down again. Even in my disoriented state I instantly recognized who the hand belonged to.

"Edward," I sighed and turn to face him. It would be good to have him here now, I thought. We could talk and I could cry. He would not question me or probe for information about my feelings. He would not have any of the stupid mourning crack that everyone else would feed me. He would just hold me against him and let me cry and when I was ready to talk about it he would listen. I reached blindly for his hand and when I found it I tried to pull him next to me but he would not comply. That was when I opened my eyes properly for the first time since the early morning.

His white button down was covered in sticky red blood. It matted his hair to his face and painted his flawless skin. His eyes were scared. They gleamed with sadness and with shame. They begged for forgiveness. He let go of my hand and I turned my head into my pillow.

And I screamed. I screamed for the sight in front of me and I screamed for Jacob. And I screamed because both issues seemed to coincide right now. He did not touch me during my episode. He did not move to sit on my bed. He just stood waiting. When I had finally exhausted my voice I looked at him again. My mind formulated endless questions. My mouth seemed to only want to ask one.

"Why?" Before he had time to answer my body fell victim to my earthshaking sobs. My entire bed wobbled with each new intake of breath and I shuddered everytime I exhaled. My cheeks were growing itchy with the new flood of tears and everytime my face had a chance to dry my body decided that it was not nearly enough. I cried for at least ten minutes at a time before I felt the need to stop and think. Then I resumed crying until I wished to think again.

For four hours. Four hours I wasted crying into my pillow and not his chest. Four hours in which we did not speak one single syllable to each other. Four hours I spent on my bed and four hours he spent standing next to me. When my face finally dried for the last time I looked at him again, my cheeks and my eyes both an angry shade of red. We were both silent.

"It wasn't me," he finally choked out. This entire ordeal seemed to be hurting him just as much as it was annoying me. It did not hurt me, I assured myself. I wanted the feeling in my chest back, that was all. I wiped my cheeks again, as if my body was acting to contradicting my thoughts.

"If it wasn't you, then who was it?" I whispered. I did not have the energy to talk. I hardly had the energy to blink.

"Jasper." I had never felt so disconnected from his world. I welcomed vampirism with open arms just a year ago. Now all I wanted to do was forget such a thing existed at all.

"Just tell me what happened."

"Last night," he began, and I felt a pang of hurt in my stomach. He was not holding me last night because he was aiding in the consumption of my best friend. "Last night Jasper decided to go on a surprise hunting trip. His eyes were so dark, I had never even seen that dark a color before. Saying they were black does not do them justice at all. But Alice saw what was going to happen. She pleaded with him for hours before he left. She even told him what he was going to do, step-by-step. But he was so thirsty. He got angry with us for trying to stop him. He thought we were insulting his self control." The words spilled from his lips and this was the first time I heard him speak in such an honest way. He was not trying to spare my feelings for the first time in a very long time. He allowed his normal collected exterior to melt away and his proper sentences and calculated movements transformed into an emotionally charged rant.

"So he left, and I followed. I was not about to let him go by himself and walk into such a preventable situation. And Alice, ever the voice of reason, followed as well. He took off as soon as he hit the edge of the forest. We tried our best to follow close behind, but he knew what we were doing and he was trying to outsmart us. He ran so fast. That morning Jacob had gotten into a fight with Embry. He was bleeding pretty badly. And he had taken off into the forest as well. Somewhere in the middle he and Jasper had met. And he didn't suspect anything.

"He let Jasper see the cut at that was the end of it. Jasper was on top of him in an instant..." he trailed off looking at me with sorrow. He was about to start editing what he was telling me, trying not to disgust me. I was already disgusted and nothing he was going to do was going to help me.

"We got there as fast as we could. Alice and I tried to pull Jasper off of Jacob. But Jacob was stubborn, as he always is. He was too wounded to change into a wolf, but that didn't stop him from taking a few jabs at Jasper. And Jasper is stronger than Alice and I. And so he won out, despite our best efforts. And I mean our very best efforts. Alice is at home tending to her own injuries. I didn't get it so bad..."

He would not look at me. He stayed focussed on his bloodstained shoes, waiting for something. Waiting for me to order him away, most likely. But I did not want him to leave, not really. I did not know what I wanted.

"Bella, you have to understand. Not a single person in my family ever meant to hurt you. Especially not Jasper. Whenever you were around his thoughts always centered on keeping you safe, trying to make you happy as best he could from afar. I-"

"Save it, Edward." I was shocked by my newfound hostility, and Edward mirrored my feelings. But I continued.

"You can say whatever you'd like. It doesn't change the fact that Jacob is _dead._ That he is _never coming back_. And that it is entirely your family's fault." Maybe I was beginning to push my luck with the present situation. I was thinking of apologizing but Edward seemed to be expecting all that I was throwing his way. The man in front of me just began to nod his head in acceptance and looked at me as if he were expecting far worse. 

"Just, take me to your house, please. I want to speak to Jasper." The idea was not a brilliant one, but my actions were beyond explanation at this point. He immediately became defensive, and rightly so.

"No, Bella. Absoloutely not."

"Edward. You can sit in the room with us if you'd like. Quite obviously, I'm unable to physically harm him. I want to talk. That's all." His expression softened a little.

"Bella. Is that such a great idea for _you_ right now?" I simply nodded and he sighed in defeat.

Alice's expression was unfathomable as I walked into the house. She was lounging on the couch in front of the television while Carlisle tended to a bite mark on her arm. A yellow-ish liquid seeped out from every puncture and Carlisle did his best to cover it, hoping I had not noticed. Neither one could meet my gaze and Edward did his best to get me to walk upstairs without paying to much attention to the other two beings in the room. Once they believed I was out of earshot the whispering started. I did not even have time to think about their conversation. We had reached our destination.

Edward knocked on Jasper and Alice's door with such authority that Jasper could not refuse to answer it. When I thought about it, this was probably deliberate on Edward's part. Jasper would certainly not speak to me willingly.

When Jasper opened the door I gasped out loud. I blushed out of embarassment, but the gasp was entirely necessary. Jasper's hair was disheveled and he had not changed out of his bloodstained clothes, but that was not the cause for alarm. His eyes were a dark shade of crimson. He turned his head away.

"Come in," he ordered simply. I took a seat on the new leather couch that Alice had just ordered from Spain ("We really need a new one. The old one is so...tattered.") and Edward decided to sit on the old couch that had not been carried out yet. Jasper remained standing.

"Hello Bella."

"Jasper," I said curtly, my hostility having not left my system yet.

"Bella felt the need to talk with you, Jasper," Edward stated.

"Obviously."

The inevitable awkward silence fell upon us and by the newfound calm that haunted the halls beyond the door, I could tell the rest of the family would be listening in on the conversation as well. 

"That shade of red goes nicely with you skin," I spat bitterly, wanting to break the overwhelming quiet. Jasper let out a roar of intense frustration.

"God damn it, Bella. Why are you here?" 

"I want you to apologize!" I was blushing now, the heat radiating off of my cheeks. 

"Well, I'm sorry!" He was anything but.

"Jasper, what are you even sorry for?"

"I don't know, what am I supposed to be sorry for, Bella?" I knew if we kept going back and forth this way, we were going to get ourselves nowhere. My eyes searched Edward's, pleading for help.

"Bella, maybe now isn't exactly the best time." He stood up and held out his hand for me to take. I lifted myself off of the couch, the humidity in the air making the leather stick to my skin. Refusing his hand, I walked towards the door, pausing at the knob. There was still so much I wanted to say, I still had the opportunity to say it. But, sensing my hesitation, Edward turned the knob for me and led me out and downstairs. Alice did not even bother to avert her gaze this time. I could feel her eyes on me, all of her disapproval and sorrow, all the way out the front door.

The drive home was a silent one. I watched the trees pass by, tried to count them to keep my mind off of Edward and his family. But it was a futile effort and my thoughts had wandered back to Jasper before we reached home. Edward left me at the door with no promise of meeting me in my room after Charlie had fallen asleep. And suddenly the time dawned on me. It was already night. Soon I would be left alone with just the moon and my thoughts like I had been last night. Vaguely, I wondered if it would be as uncomfortable as last night too.

After I had passed Charlie, whom was sitting on the couch still in his pajamas, and ignored his questions I headed immediately to my room. My bed creaked as I leaned on it and I seemed to answer my own question. Tonight would be even more uncomfortbale than last night. Realization hit me like a brick to the stomach. For the first time today I seriously considered the absence of my heart. And all the torn muscle and shredded veins that held my heart in place before throbbed. And it hurt. For the first time today I allowed it to hurt.

I had not just lost Jacob Black. I had lost my best friend.

A/N: Okay guys...please review? Be harsh, I can take it. 


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